Jordan England-Nelson

Staff Writer

Recent articles

3-D technology

The motion-capture technology that made “Avatar” one of the most expensive films in history will, in the not too distant future, become the tools of independent filmmakers on shoestring budgets.As computer graphic algorithms improve and costs fall, shooting a film with lights, cameras and human actors may be considered a quaint and expensive luxury.“There will be a crossover point,” said Paul Debevec, a research director at the Institute for Creative...

3-D technology

Holocaust survivor Pinchas Gutter tears up if you ask him about his sister, whose face he no longer remembers.Gutter was 11 when he entered a Nazi concentration camp. His only memory of his sister is her hair, which she wore in a golden braid.“Life in the camp is indescribable because it was like living death,” he said. “You were just one centimeter from the grave.”Conversing with Gutter is an emotionally moving experience — even though...

Business

Santa Monica and Venice Beach have made headlines for being at the epicenter of Southern California’s booming tech industry, now commonly referred to as Silicon Beach.But as rents on the Westside soar, tech companies large and small are starting to look south for larger offices in Playa Vista, a planned community on the site of the former Hughes Aircraft campus.In January, Yahoo announced that it will move its Santa Monica headquarters and 400 employees into a new office...

Social media

If Don Draper worked in today’s world, he would have an account on Instagram. And on Vine, Whisper, Snapchat and any other social media platform that dominates the attention of young people, the world’s future consumers.The best advertisers don’t get sentimental about the tactile experience of the printed page or the delicate scratch of the record player’s needle. If people spend their time listening to the radio or driving past billboards, advertisers will...

Social media

Melissa Clark first realized her eighth-grade daughter was a celebrity the day they arrived at her new school in Santa Clarita, and students surrounded her car and begged her daughter to take pictures with them.The next day at school, she was “literally mobbed by about 200 people,” Clark said from her home in Burbank. “An administrator had to walk her from class to class.”Three years later, Clark’s daughter — who has a makeup tutorial...

Grocery store operators

Fresh & Easy has announced plans to sell off 30 of its Southern California stores and develop a new business model for its remaining outlets as it positions the company for growth.The El Segundo-based grocery chain plans to shutter 50 stores across California, Nevada and Arizona, or about 30 percent of its 167 stores, the company confirmed Monday.The under-performing stores are offering 50 percent discounts on merchandise to help clear out inventories before a planned April...

Internet services

“I love it because it’s free money,” Cathy Okawa said from her home in Sherman Oaks.The stay-at-home mom and family finance blogger was talking about Swagbucks, a coupon rewards site that millions of people visit each month to shop for deals, watch videos, play games and fill out surveys. The site — whose parent company Prodege is based in El Segundo — rewards users with points, called...

Online media

Like so many hopefuls before her, Ali Spagnola moved to Los Angeles to pursue her music career. But Spagnola isn’t hoping to be “discovered.” She’s hoping to grow her online fan base, already in the millions, with help from the YouTube Space LA, a film production warehouse in Playa Vista that’s free for YouTube creators with at least 10,000 followers.Spagnola, and the thousands of creators who use the YouTube Space LA, represent a new breed of...

Aviation safety and security

Los Angeles International Airport is about to embark on a $250 million construction project that will require one of its four runways to be closed on a rotating basis over the next four years, which could lead to some flight delays.Starting Friday, crews will begin work on the first runway — 25L on the south side of the airfield — to increase the size of the safety areas at both ends of the runway. The areas serve as buffer zones in case planes overshoot a landing or...

Space launch industry

Google is helping SpaceX bring high-speed Internet to the masses with a constellation of small satellites.SpaceX announced Tuesday that Google and Fidelity have invested $1 billion in the Hawthorne-based rocket maker, giving it a 10 percent stake in the company.In an interview last...